About three years ago, I mentioned to my wife that I had always wanted to have a N gauge railway layout, and as I was beginning to think about retiring a little earlier than my 60th birthday maybe finding space at some point to build one would be a good retirement project.  I had built a 00 layout 30 years earlier although without much in the way of scenery.  Within half an hour my wife had reorganised our 3 bedroom flat to empty everything from one of the small bedrooms but my desk.  In that room I am building Elvenhome (in the image below).  The layout is 2.8m along its longest side and 1.9 along the foot of the L.  It is 900mm deep and stands at 1m of the ground.
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It is a fictional place with the names for almost everything taken from the works fo JRR Tolkien, principally Lord of the Rings.  The main station is called Weathertop with three other stations, Grey Havens, Sharky's End, and eventually High Elven.  It is DCC but with DC control of point motors and lights.  It took about a year for me to source and have supplied the baseboards (living in a 3rd floor flat I have very little scope for major woodworking) for my L shaped layout.  
My wife also suggested that I should document the build of my layout on YouTube.  I was not at all sure about doing that but I decided to give it a try and I have, to my astonishment, found it great fun and a spur to getting on with things to be able to show in my regular updates.  I will post a link to the latest video shortly after posting this introductory messages

 I have been astonished by the range of skills that you need to master.  I have enjoyed the challenge of learning them and applying them.  I am particularly enjoying scratch building things for the layout, mainly so far from card, so that I have things that are unique to my layout.  Above all else it has proved, and is proving to be great fun. I hope you will enjoy the updates to the layout as I record them here.

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Here is the link to my latest video with me completing the gardens for the Gardener and Sexton to St Eldar's Church at Grey Havens.  I also have a first go at building a hillside.

Hi Steven,

Very nice. Do you have the dimensions?

Nigel

I should have mentioned that Nigel so thanks for asking. I'll go back and edit the original in a minute.  The layout is 2.8m along its longest side and 1.9m along the foot of the L.  The depth is 900mm

Hi Stephen,

Thanks. Have to convert to imperial, this is the U.S. Note the absence of the V.

Nigel

Time for the June update showing other things I have been doing in addition to gardening and scenic work.  It includes my first use of Ballast Magic, with good results, and a demonstration of a gimbal that I am using with my IiPhone to get running shots.   This last bit took several attempts to get it right, and I have included some outtakes of the bits that didn't make the cutting room floor

Well I have had a first go at ballasting using Deluxe Ballast Magic and I show the results I have obtained in this video.  I also take a look at the new RevolutioN Trains Class B tankers, a crowdfunded model, three of which now grace my layout.  Finally you get to see two S&DJR engines double heading a rake of tankers.  

Having completed some ballasting and scenic work, which I show in the video, I realised that until I planned the goods yard and station for the high level station at High Elven, I really couldn't get on with other bits of the layout.  Much to my surprise planing the layout proved easier than I expected, and I show the plan in the video.  I would be interested in views on what I am planning

[user=1632]BCDR[/user] wrote:

Hi Stephen,

Thanks. Have to convert to imperial, this is the U.S. Note the absence of the V.

Nigel

Hi Nigel,

Multiply the metric measure by 39.37 will give you the size in inches. You can do feet from there!  There are a lot of people younger than myself who cannot work in imperial in this now metric country

900mm is a little over 35"
2800mm is about 9ft 2"
1900mm is about 6'3"

The trick is to work in metric rather than try to convert as I found when the changeover occurred here in mid 74.  I could not believe the recalcitrance of people I met in America 2.5 years after that who could not get their heads around the metric system and subsequently dumped the idea.

Hope this helps!

Regards from Australia

Trevor

With the fun of August in Edinburgh over it is time to let Sharky's End get its station and to complete some more the infrastructure around it.  This video follows that work.

Sharky's End is finally on the layout, and the scenic work around it complete so far as I can at the moment.  th video also includes the start of a project to build a War Memorial for Elvenhome.  Finally I have, after four other rejected versions (and variants of each of those versions) settled on my track plan for High Elven the terminus of the branch line - or at least I think I have  ;-) 

In this video I cover the next stage in the building of the War Memorial.  I also reveal the final track plan for the branch terminus High Eleven, and talk about the scenic work I have planned around the main station.

A really nice layout Stephen i can a lot of effort and skill has gone into building it

Brian

Thanks very much Brian.  As we all do, I get great satisfaction in seeing the plans come together, or more often something totally unplanned work really well. 

Time to show the next stages in the building of the War Memorial.  Finding a place for it on the layout has caused me to rethink the town plan as I explain.  I also show the happy outcome to a moment of deep despair, when my soldering iron touched something it really shouldn't.

At least it was only a model and you didnt burn a hole in your leg or set the house on fire Stephen.
Im sure all of us have damaged or broken things in error at some point.


Brian

[user=2137]Briperran[/user] wrote:

At least it was only a model and you didnt burn a hole in your leg or set the house on fire Stephen.
Im sure all of us have damaged or broken things in error at some point.


Brian

Indeed so Brian.  It wil serve as a good lesson for the future and all ended well with three sound fitted Castles on the layout 😄
Stephen

I have now completed the scratch build of the War Memorial and you can see the result in the latest video.  I also show where it will go on the layout and the changed town plan to accommodate it.  There is also a cavalcade of locomotives.

A lovely layout Stephen - I don't know how you N gaugers do it!  I'm forever cursing how small everything is in OO!  Great to see the war memorial completed before 11/11!  And a lovely model. You take the same approach to problem solving as me - things that need to be planned and finished before something as simple as ballasting.
Look forward to seeing more!

Regards

Michael

Thanks very much Michael.  N gauge can be a challenge sometimes.  With the kiosk there were four small triangles, not more than a couple of millimetres in length to support the name board in position on the roof (you can see one of them in one of the pictures).  After wrestling with two I'd had enough!  Glad you like the layout which is coming along as I wanted.
Regards

Stephen